Technical information

165

1. Perform a ‘HEAD CLEANING’ via you printer’s control menu 2 times in a row (NOTE: this will

consume upwards of 10% of your total remaining ink): http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=1939

2. If, after activating the ‘Head Cleaning’ routine 2 times in a row in accordance with Inkjet411

suggestions: http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=73 along with manufacturer’s suggested printer

cleaning procedures, blank pages are observed or output print quality is extremely poor (for

example, you observe several missing colors in the Self Test page where otherwise all colors should

normally be present with no visible streaking), then the printhead may have partially dried out and a

water flush may be necessary to help recover the ink system.* For reference, here is how this is

done on 100+ popular HP printer models since it commonly occurs and ink system recovery is

usually successful (see video): http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=2412

Unfortunately, since the Epson PRINTHEAD is not customer removable, we need to take a different

approach here:

2.A. PRINTHEAD Water Drip/Soak:

1. Remove suspect color cartridge – if unknown, then remove all

cartridges.

2. Gently slide a paper towel under the PRINTHEAD/CARRIAGE

assembly.

3. You’ll see a round mesh ink port where ink flows into the

PRINTHEAD.

4. Thoroughly dampen the ink port with 1-2 teaspoons of distilled water (eye-dropper or syringe

works best; pour or drip water directly into ink port). NOTE: Use of a syringe works best by

forcing water into port.

5. Reinstall ink cartridge(s).

6. Remove paper towel from beneath PRINTHEAD/CARRIAGE assembly

7. Activate the ‘Clean Printhead’ routine once to see if the respective color(s) begins to flow.

8. If not, repeat steps 4-7 again.

NOTE 1: It is fairly common for Epson printheads to dry out and suffer degraded/missing colors in

printed output but an ink system recovery is possible using the suggested procedure above.

*All printheads eventually s uffer an i nternal micro -electronics failure and will cease to print correctly at some point in

time (typically after 3-4 years of operation). Typically the printhead should not reach it’s end-of-life until after a

minimum of 8 or more complete s ets of cartridge changes; Epson Workforce/WF PRO models usually have a higher

print page throughput average over entry-level printer models, but this is not always the case. While some printheads

may last 15,000+ pa ges others may only last 3000 pages, actual results will vary.

The printhead will eventually fail in time due to an i nternal micro-electronics failure, due to the following leading

fa ctors : general customer print usage and printer ca re, printer duty cycl e (i.e. # pages printed per month), printing

frequency (i.e. time between each print job), print mode (i .e. draft vs . normal) and content printed (i.e. photos vs